The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-10-19

and indirect approach-to pause and in
spect the garden, and stop to tighten
the empty clothes-line, and to bring up
at the fence in an accidental and unpre-
meditated way.
Mr. Talcott was working energetic
ally. A pile of worm-eaten posts,
pulled up by the roots, and broken
pieces lay before him. A little further
down Job Dwyer was amassing SINH
lar heap.
" thought likely you'd think better
of it," Mr.. Long observed, with his
eyes fixed YEARLY on the other.
This fence has been wanting fixing
for quite SPELL l don't know as it's
worth while tearing it down; l thought
mebbe little fxiAg up'd do it. But
Pm willing to do my share, if you be
calculating to build new one" After
an unresponsive pause: You're cal
culating to build new one, s'pose?'
Yes, be-" Mr.. Talcott reioined,
with acrimonious promptness.
WE'LL" he said, " it'll be good
thing. l s'pose it ought to have been
done before" He pulled blade of
grass and chewed it undauntedly for two
or three minutes before he went into
the house.
Well?" said his wife, as she set the
dish of pork on the table.
"He's set out to build a new line
fence" said Mr.. Long, taking his seat
and showing his knife up and down be-
tween the tines of his fork.
His wife turned to look at him. Her
sharp intuition rooted out the dark side
of the statement
"You hain't had words with him,
Elias?" she said, quick alarm in her
pleasant face. "Now you didn't have
no trouble with him yesterday about
them hens?"
I" told him." said Mr.. Long, reach
ing for the coffee-pot, "h his hens had
den, and the fence better be fixed up.
If he's mind to flare up like fool |
don't know as it's any of my concern"
He took a swallow from his cup. His
wife watched him wistfully. She looked
dazed
She went about the house that day
with an uneasy apprehension in her
face.
I" don't know what to make of it,"
she kept thinking, in troubled way.
She knew by the next night. The
new line fence was done. 1t was seven
feet high. There was nothing to be
seen across it except the upper half of
Mr.. Talcotts house, the tops of the
trees and the barn roof. 1t rose tall
and stern and forbidding, and there
was no gate. 1t was hostile, uncom-
promising barrier. 1t was an effective
monument to Mr.. Talcott's wrath and
resentment.
The summer passed on into the fall
and the fall became raw and windy,
and eventually snowy. Mr.. Longs
tomatoes had not suffered again from
Mr.. Talcott's hens. They had ripened
finely. They had been eaten and
stewed; they had been made up in
catsup, and they had been pulled while
green to be sliced and picked.
Mr. Talcott's fence had accomplished
this and great deal more. 1t had
stood there like an evil monster and
had never been crossed. 1t had come
down like curse from the skies and
shut off all the old communication and
turned the old friendship into hard en-
nifty and the old trust into fixed rancor.
1t became rapidly known that the
two old neighbors were " not on speak
ing terms" and the causes and circum-
stances of the rupture were not mys-
terry. 1t was known, too, that Mrs.
Long and Mrs. Talcott were not active
participants in the quarrel. The old,
pleasant companionship seemed vir-
tually ended because, in their timid
womanly submissiveness, they obeyed
the unspoken commands of their hus-
bands rather than face the displeasure
which would have followed a defiance
of them. But they smiled when they
met each other; they fingered in the
church vestibule to exchange good
mornings"
The autumn days filled the air with
the dim blue vapor and not unpleasant
odor of bonfire smoke. Mr.. Talcott
was late with his. He put it off till his
fall cleaning was done--the garden
freed of the dried and empty bean-vines,
and raked off; the weeds pulled up,
which had flourished powerless for harm
during the last month or two, and which
now stood black and frozen; a few
dead bushes cut down and the fruit
trees trimmed here and there. 1t was
late in November when the pile lay
ready, low down in corner of the plum
dered pOtato-patch. In some of its
rough hollows lay the remains of thin
snow.
Mr.. Talcott lighted it directly after
supper Now and then he replenished
it; at eight O'Clock it was still burning.
He sat down ON an old stump to look at
it as it leaped and flickered itself out,
lighting up broad space around it and
shining on the high fence.
Mr.. Talcott sat with his elbows on his
knees and his chin in his hands.
There was sort of peace in the clear
night and in the early quiet which had
settled down upon it. He looked
around at the still, bare scene and the
pale-gray sky, and felt something of the
tranquility.
A little spark from the subsding fire
snapped into little pile of dry stalks
half a rod distant and they famed up.
A twig took fire from them and burned
to its end and loose splinter blazed
in its turn. He watched the curious
line of light as it ate its pickering way
along. There was deep deposit of
dead leaves drifted up against the tall
fence; they took the alarm and glowed
and cracked smartly. After then the
flames mounted up and grew broader
and redder; the fence had caught fire.
Vol 4